William Peffer

Prohibition voters helped to elect William Alfred Peffer to the United States Senate from Kansas in 1890.    Peffer, a Populist, served one term.
     William Alfred Peffer was born in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania on10 September 1831.  He taught school, participated in the California Gold Rush, was footloose for several years, enlisted in the Union Army, studied law while in uniform, and practiced law in Tennessee, before finally settling in Kansas. 
   Peffer continued to practice law after going to Kansas, but he also owned and edited the Fredonia Journal.  Later on, he also was editor of the Coffeeville Journal and of the Kansas Farmer.
     Peffer was an unsuccessful fusion candidate, with the Prohibition and other parties, for governor of Kansas in 1898.  He died on 6 October 1912, in Grenola, Kansas.

-- Gammon, 2007, pp. 49-50

Also see bibliographies:

• Argersinger, P.H. (1974) – Populism and Politics: William Alfred Peffer and the People’s Party:  Lexington, University Press of Kentucky